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Tuesday, October 4

Amanda Knox: Did she? Or didn't she?

As pretty much everyone on the planet knows except perhaps a handful of Taliban, Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend are not going to spend the better part of 30 years in prison for the senseless slaying of her (ex)roommate, Meredith (Mez) Kircher. I've been of two minds about this whole fiasco since the start of it.First off, if we are to believe the press - and, much mud has been slung these 4-odd years since Mez was found with her throat cut - Amanda immediately started telling tales the moment she was brought in for questioning. Her tales threw an innocent guy in prison - and she fingered the police for abuse. In both cases she was found guilty of perjury, character assassination and defamation.But, whether or not she & her boyfriend were actually present the night Mez died was never fully proven, and certainly not beyond the shadow of a doubt. No weapon was ever retrieved, and seemingly, no motive to be found.However, the case was being prosecuted by none other than the dubious prosecutor of Florence (don't ask), now infamous for his bizarre deployment of his 'investigative powers' and his spinning a web that ruined many an innocent life - while never truly catching the true culprit. This man, who reminds me of a character from A Confederacy of Dunces, wove a story of sex cults and dark rituals while trying to finger an illiterate farmer for crimes he probably did not commit. Crimes perpetrated by the Monster of Florence, who periodically took out young lovers while perched in lover's lane. The case has been famously chronicled in an eponymous book by author Daniel Prescott and journalist, Mario Spezi.Problem was, our self-styled Lieutenant Colombo then went after these very journalists as the monsters themselves, even though Prescott was never in Italy whenever the crimes were committed. Both have been under investigation, one tried, and even now one friend is defending himself from the zealous prosecution team. You can read a short article by Prescott on the case in the Atlantic Monthly.So, applying what we know about railroad justice, even though the kids seemed to have something to hide, the prosecution needed a bit more than wild sex scenes played out in court to pin them to the murder. Rudy Guede is already imprisoned for the murder, and so, there was nowhere to go but be set free for these kids.Sadly, whatever the sequence of events that night, those kids will most likely take to their graves. And, sadder still, while Amanda garners book deals and goes on speaker circuits, one person, practically ignored in the media, was the one who got more than her character assassinated that night in Perugia.

----------------------------------------------------------As Amanda enjoyed her first days of freedom, reportedly eating pizza & lasagna as during her Italian sojourn, the bartender who she falsely accused of murder had this much to say:Amanda is quite an actress. Those tears she shed upon sentencing were nothing but crocodile tears.

I agree with you. Very good write up, but I cannot believe you did not make more of a judgment on the Italian justice system, bumbling police investigators with the DNA, etc. I guess you are getting softer in your old age.

@Eurasleep - how right you are! It's the media takeover of Italy since King Berlusconi came to power way back when, coupled with the only alternative in the empire being the Dark Prince of Media, Rupert Murdoch owning the cable networks...I'm reading Walter Veltroni's new book on the moment when Reality became a RealityTV circus right now: L'inizio del Buio - bellissimo.

@Anon - I didn't look at the bungling of evidence, although after the other media circus trials of the poor Sara Scazzi, Melania & Cogne, it seems to be the norm - unfortunately, it's also the norm in every other country on earth that holds trials & the ones that practice detention w/o proof like China, well, they don't even bother...

Where do you get that they seem to have something to hide? I'm so tired of people pretending like it's an open question, like they probably know more, or we just have no hope of knowing what really happened that night. We do know. Rudy Guede broke in and killed that girl.

All the rest is sound and fury that's not even remotely based on fact. And it's not that it wasn't proven that they weren't at the cottage that night, it's that it's proven they weren't. (No one ever talks about the credible eyewitness who puts them at his house or the computer evidence that does as well.)

Seriously, these two innocent people have been through enough. Let's not pile on by regarding them with suspicion for the rest of their lives after a court has fully exonerated them. And, yes, that's what this verdict was. It wasn't just an acquittal, it was an exoneration. (Italian courts have both options.)

No, they didn't "definitely knew or saw something and didn't call the police." They called the police. They called the other roommate. They called Raffaele's sister, herself a police officer.

The evidence quite clearly shows that they did NOT clean anything at the house. All of the sponges, rags, and mops at the house were tested. None had been used.

Amanda made a confused, muddled statement to police after they seized on a text message on her cell phone and badgered and hounded her. They also thoroughly confused her by lying and telling her they had witnesses who put her at the scene of the crime. I would urge anyone who questions the validity of false confessions to read an opinion piece in yesterday's New York Times addressing the question of why people falsely implicate themselves (and others). It happens far more frequently than we want to believe. To those of us familiar with the language of false confessions, Amanda's statement, couched in the terms of a dream or imagining, bear all the telltale signs of an utterly untrue, unreliable statement produced through coercion.

About Me

An American living in Italy takes off her rose-colored glasses to
reveal what life is really like through the trials & tribulations of
daily living in the country known for its 'Quality of Life'.
Burnt by the Tuscan Sun - The Book! Signed copies available when ordered from my website - otherwise available thru Amazon & Kindle and in Italy, local English bookstores.